Stories by Carol Rose

ACLU campaign seeks to inform voters about power of district attorneys

WHO ARE THE MOST POWERFUL people in the criminal justice system? A lot of people quickly say, judges. The real answer: district attorneys. Look no further than the timely case study currently unfolding in the Commonwealth’s highest court. Earlier this month, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed to hear a case involving the fallout from(...)

Walking the walk isn’t enough in fighting racism

AS 40,000 PEOPLE converged on the streets of Boston in late August to march against white supremacy, Massachusetts stood as a beacon of nationwide resistance to the racist policies coming out of the White House. It was fitting; historically, many revolutions have started in Massachusetts. Raising our collective voice against bigotry is a healthy exercise(...)

Let’s stop collaborating beyond what the law requires

MANY OF US CHOOSE TO LIVE in Massachusetts because of its freedom, relative to the rest of the world. While imperfect, our Commonwealth is safer, richer, cleaner, and fairer than most other places I’ve lived. This position of relative privilege and freedom gives Massachusetts residents both the opportunity and the obligation to work together to(...)

We must push back against threats of a Trump presidency

THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION election unleashed forces of racism, sexism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and authoritarianism that, we now know, have been simmering just beneath the surface of the collective American polity. But the election of a president who campaigned on threats to dismantle protections for the least among us also has mobilized millions of freedom-loving people to(...)

Award attorney fees if documents are unjustly withheld

WE IN THE cradle of liberty think of ourselves as national leaders when it comes to government openness and democracy. After all, Massachusetts colonists used public “broadsheets” to inform people about tyrannical acts by the British crown, sparking the American independence movement. And early on in the founding of our nation, lawmakers recognized that an(...)

The end of Occupy Boston was a peaceful success because the protestors respected the law.

the rise and fall of the Occupy Boston encampment at Dewey Square has been hailed as a model of how police and city officials should respond to peaceful political dissent in the public sphere. Compared with video footage of cops pepper-spraying and clubbing protestors in Oakland, San Francisco, New York, and elsewhere, Boston looked pretty(...)